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Transforming Wellness: Tegan Bukowski’s Vision for a Healthier Remote Workforce - ep. 090

• TEGAN BUKOWSKI, RICK HANEY, KALEEM CLARKSON • Season 1 • Episode 90

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What a lively and insightful episode! Hosts Rick Haney and Kaleem Clarkson chat with Tegan Bukowski, the innovative co-founder and CEO of WellSet.

Tegan's unique upbringing set the stage for her extraordinary journey, beginning with her formative years living on a 34-foot powerboat in Puget Sound, Washington. This unconventional lifestyle, which Tegan humorously refers to as her first remote working job, fostered her independence and adaptability.

Her transition from life on the boat to a successful career in Los Angeles is marked by impressive academic and professional achievements. Her dedication to social impact became evident through her nonprofit work, leading projects worldwide, such as designing a photovoltaic field in Rwanda and conducting art therapy with children affected by conflict. This work has received recognition in prestigious publications like The New York Times, Time Magazine, and Vogue.

Our guest transitioned from architecture at Zaha Hadid, where health challenges led her to explore holistic health, creating WellSet, the first holistic health platform for teams to combat burnout. Her decade-long journey saw wellness evolve from niche to necessity, driven by her personal health struggles. Becoming a yoga instructor, she used yoga, meditation, and diet to manage her condition, teaching globally.

Key achievements include wellness activations for companies like Samsung and Lululemon, often through organic opportunities from her rooftop sessions. Co-founding WellSet with Sky Meltzer in 2018, they pivoted from in-person sessions to digital offerings during the pandemic, with the Stay at Home Wellness Festival attracting 45,000 participants. This success transformed WellSet into a digital studio with diverse daily classes.

Tegan's journey through wellness, entrepreneurship, and remote work encapsulates the evolving landscape of holistic health and the profound impact of the pandemic on work and wellbeing! Her story is a testament to resilience, adaptability, and the enduring importance of community and holistic care in navigating modern challenges. Thank you for joining us this time, Tegan!

Learn more about Tegan:

Kaleem:

Where did you originally grow up?

Tegan:

On a boat in Puget Sound in Washington State. That's remote working. Remote working from a boat.

Rick:

Yarr

Tegan:

That's my first remote working job. We can talk about it.

Kaleem:

were born on a boat.

Tegan:

I wasn't born on the boat,

Kaleem:

Oh, wait, you were actually born in a hospital.

Tegan:

I was born in a hospital.

Rick:

But the hospital was a bOat

Tegan:

I wasn't born on the boat, but I lived there for 10 years growing up before graduating from high schooL.

Rick:

So the first ten years of your life you were raised on a boat in Puget Sound Puget Sound

Tegan:

until 18.

Rick:

Eight That's amazing

Kaleem:

Did you believe in mermaids? Yes or no?

Tegan:

Yeah, definitely.

Rick:

Welcome back to Remotely One I am your co host Rick Haney joined by my esteemed colleague Kaleem Clarkson What's going down

Kaleem:

Jazz hands Super jazzed up

Rick:

Oh this is going to be fun This is going to be so much fun

Kaleem:

Your baby blues is still shining through bro. They're looking good again, man. Looking good again. You're

Rick:

Stop Stop Hey everybody Since you know how to find us do us a huge favor and go to rate this podcast com forward slash remotely one and leave us a review That's it No big deal Again it's rate this podcast com forward slash If you could do that for us we would be ever so thankful Since 2015 RemotelyOne is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals With over 3 000 Slack members and 5 000 email subscribers And if I'm not mistaken that number is growing Five That's awesome It's free to join so go check it out at remotelyone com And with that out of the way Kaleem my brother Give us a tease or two about today's guest

Kaleem:

bro. Like what happens is, you know, we booked these guests and then I'm like, ah, no big deal. We're going to talk to you. No big deal. And then the day of I started getting real nervous, Rick. And you know, I swept through my shirts, buddy.

Rick:

perspiry You get all perspiry

Kaleem:

Oh my gosh. And it's just like an airplane over here. So

Rick:

I want you to turn that perspiration into inspiration And we're gonna do that today

Kaleem:

yes, yes, I am inspired. Do you know why I'm inspired about, about today's guest Rick?

Rick:

Uh lay it on me What

Kaleem:

is originally from the ocean and they now reside. Yeah. The ocean. And they now reside in Los Angeles. Okay. They have touch land and they no longer have fins. The water was splashed on her in the middle of the city. Okay. And then, you know, she had fins in the middle of the city, but now she found her true love Rick. So now she can walk on land now and not have to live in the ocean. Unbelievable. It's amazing. Not only that Rick, our guest did not just stop there. She didn't just learn to walk and come out of the ocean. She knows some shits.

Rick:

Okay okay let's hear it let's hear

Kaleem:

She knows some shits. She got into the air force Academy. Okay. not only that she has her master's in architecture from just a tiny little school. No big deal. Yeah.

Rick:

Yale That's big time

Kaleem:

Yep. Yep. And she did all that after living on a boat until high school son after living on a boat until high school. We're like, where are you? Where are you from? She goes? I don't know because I was born on a boat and I lived on the boat. Yes. Now you weren't technically born on the boat, right? Guest.

Tegan:

No, I wasn't, but we can tell that story today, we can even make it

Rick:

we're gonna go with

Tegan:

We

Kaleem:

you did live on a boat all the way until high school. Pretty

Tegan:

Yeah, I did with my mom and it wasn't a houseboat. A lot of people are like, Oh, it's, you know, one of those big, like fancy Seattle, like, you know, sleepless in Seattle type house floating house things. No, no, it was a 34, it was a 34 foot power boat. So

Kaleem:

I don't like small spaces. I don't like small

Tegan:

No, it was, it was honestly beautiful though, because that was why we ended up on the powerboat, not on a sailboat, because it had these big windows, and it was really beautiful. It was antique. It was, um, beautiful teak and mahogany wood everywhere. So it was, it was beautiful, but it was a powerboat.

Kaleem:

That is unbelievable, but it worked out. It worked out, Rick, Rick, the work that she has been done. Just take this, just look at a few places. We're just going to name them a few because I can't name them all. Rick. Okay,

Rick:

you can try I mean that list is impressive

Kaleem:

her work has been featured in the New York Times, Time Magazine, Fast Company. Fast Design, TechCrunch, Marty Beingreen, Huffington Post, Vogue Magazine. I'm tired. I'm

Rick:

Do I see Mother Jones on there

Kaleem:

Mother

Tegan:

That's a really interesting project, if you guys want to talk about that one, that was featured in Mother

Rick:

do

Kaleem:

And Business Insight. Oh, Glamour. Glamour Magazine. And of course, she got in the alma mater. Yo, Retrospector. I can't even say it. Oh, Rick, our guest is the co founder and CEO of WellSet, which is the first holistic health platform for teams. Listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to Teagan Bukowski! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!

Rick:

Alright people

Kaleem:

down Settle Down studio. Settle

Tegan:

you, thank you,

Kaleem:

They're so loud. They're so loud. Thank

Rick:

Teagan I mean we can't control these people All I can say is that they're excited to see you and hear your story

Tegan:

I'm excited to see them.

Kaleem:

Big crowd, big crowd.

Rick:

Yes Yes thank you for joining us Yeah it's really great to have you

Tegan:

Yeah, great, great to be here. And actually, as you were listing off the, which I don't normally hear a list of all the places that the work has been featured all at once, but it made me think about how you know, I started My career in the nonprofit space, actually doing a lot of different projects, creating a lot of different teams, and they were always remote. I hadn't actually thought about that until this moment, but actually, you know, even that mother Jones project that we could talk about was a fully remote team internationally, and we were getting a lot done. So, anyway, it's great to be here.

Kaleem:

Tegan, seeming you just blew off our first question that we had for you. Tell us about your first experience working remotely. Damn it. I don't know. I don't know. We got to talk about Mother Jones.

Tegan:

All right. I guess the, the nonprofit experience is probably my most applicable working remotely, although we were going to talk about working remotely on the boat when I was like 13 and we were going to

Kaleem:

Listen, this is your show, Tegan. You C you can,

Tegan:

That is not my show. This is your show.

Rick:

the captain

Tegan:

right. Setting the stage

Kaleem:

that. She the captain of the ship. Did you hear it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Tegan:

captain of

Kaleem:

You get it'cause you grew up on a boat just playing.

Rick:

Get it Get it Wink wink Nudge nudge

Tegan:

I wasn't the captain though, I mean, that's, that's the,

Kaleem:

Seriously, now

Tegan:

it's true. Um, working on the boat back in the day. I taught myself how to code and actually had, uh, you know, in the 90s, my, my first kind of project was working, literally sitting in the v berth of the boat, so in the front of the boat, in my little v berth bed, coding at the age of 12. And I started a website that I was teaching mostly girls how to code. Um, this was like before MySpace and Facebook. It was like back, back in the day. back way back in the day. That was kind of working remotely. But my, I think my, my first experience working with a team remotely was probably my non profit experience. So I started, what was essentially kind of an umbrella, 501, C3 in college. I went to WashU for undergrad, after I left the Air Force Academy, I know you mentioned that I went to the Air Force Academy, and we were talking about this before the show, but I think I, I chose to go to the Air Force Academy after living on a boat because I had zero structure. Like, it was like, I was like a wild child, like, running around in my dinghy, like, you know, pet seals and stuff and I was like, maybe I should stop being a mermaid, and I should go into the military. That was the idea, that was the link in my, like, 16 year old, 17 year old brain, I was like, military. But and that was a great experience, but it was at the end of the day, it was, I, that's a whole story, but I, I wanted to do something much more creative. Well, it was just, I actually loved the military part, and I am a supporter of the military. I think the military is great, but I am an entrepreneur. I have done a billion different creative projects. I'm, I have an architect's brain. It wasn't for me in terms of the education, but anyway, I ended up at Wash U in St. Louis, and they have just such an incredible way of supporting students to start their careers social impact projects. And so I ended up getting a grant from the Gephardt Institute. And started this non profit. It was called Artist Activists, but honestly, that name was really just an umbrella name. And we ended up doing projects in nine different countries. Ranging from designing East Africa's first utility scale photovoltaic field that powers, I think, at one point, it powered almost 10 percent of the Rwandan energy grid, and powered about 25, 000 village homes that didn't have power before, and it financially powers an orphanage of about 650 kids. That was started originally after the genocide in Rwanda, and, you know, now it's, it's been a while, so I think most of the kids have graduated from the house. But, that were affected by that, but it's just a, that was a great project. But we also did arts therapy with kids that had been affected by warfare, natural disaster, election violence in Kenya. And those projects were in Haiti. And and we did one in Rwanda, did one in Kenya. We did one in Columbia with kids that had been affected by the guerrilla warfare there. And then, and we had a team that went to, to Ghana and started a radio school actually, applicable to you guys, and that was really cool because we taught a bunch of teenagers how to run a radio station, and they would teach agricultural best practice over the radio in addition to a bunch of other things, so.

Kaleem:

so. you did all this remotely

Tegan:

was all remote! They were

Kaleem:

while in college while

Tegan:

While in college! Yeah, and actually, and it was, it was a totally different world then, obviously we didn't have things. Like, you know, easy video conferencing. And so it was a lot of time spent on, messaging service, use services. I don't even, I can't remember what we were using back then, but, it was a lot of probably aim. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not that old actually.

Rick:

Heh

Tegan:

We're beyond aim. That was, that was when I was like

Kaleem:

you were like you're like, ha ha. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. Slow down. I'm not that old.

Tegan:

old.

Rick:

Hehehe

Tegan:

insulted.

Rick:

Hehehe Hehehe

Tegan:

is a video, this is a video, podcast. I know, but, for people who are listening, I'm not, anyway.

Kaleem:

that's hilarious.

Tegan:

but, um, My most remote working experience that is related to the non profit. so I met I went to, I traveled, as a result of one of these projects through the non profit, I traveled to the west of Rwanda and I met an orphanage out there that was a different one than the one we were working with, run by a really, really cool guy, Victor Montroy, called L'Esperance. And and he was telling me when we were there visiting that they were really struggling to take payments from people in Germany, which is where they had a really big support system. And so I ended up, and this is before there were really easy payment gateways, so, um, now this would be such a, an easy thing for them to do. But back then, techno technologically, it was really hard for them to take payments internationally and from the web. So I built them a payment gateway. Gateway portal website. And because of that, I ended up meeting an astronaut named Ron Garan, and he, I actually didn't meet him there, he ended up calling me maybe about six months later when I was back in the States, and I picked up the phone and he was like, hello, is this Teagan? And I was like, yes? And he was like, this is astronaut Ron Garan. And I was like, okay.

Rick:

Hehehe Hehehe

Tegan:

so I ended up working on

Kaleem:

this is actually not Buzz Lightyear

Tegan:

I know literally no, he is literally buzz light year.

Kaleem:

What

Tegan:

light

Rick:

Reach for the sky

Tegan:

He's the coolest. But he was like, I'm about to go to the space station on the Soyuz rocket in, you know, about eight months and I wanna do. Um, and so I ended up actually helping him to build kind of the, it's, it was a humanitarian mapping project from space using this open source technology called Ushahidi. It was a crisis mapping platform that I'd been using in Kenya. And anyway we created kind of a, like a blog slash mapping project from the space station. So I actually had the space station phone number in my phone for a while and anyway, so

Kaleem:

this is crazy. How like

Rick:

I've never talked to another human being who had the space station phone number in their phone

Tegan:

That's some remote working.

Kaleem:

I don't feel worthy

Tegan:

are definitely.

Rick:

I'm so out of place right now

Kaleem:

Like like she's just like yeah buzz light year was like yo, you want to do this project with me? And she's like

Rick:

Yes Ha

Kaleem:

tonight

Rick:

ha

Kaleem:

and

Tegan:

Ron is the coolest and he, he's still, I think that, um, it got adopted, the project, it was called Fragile Oasis, got adopted by NASA and then I think, I can't remember, I don't know how, what, I actually don't know what's going, maybe you guys should have Ron on the show next, but, um, he's, he's, doing all sorts of cool stuff,

Kaleem:

with Ron.

Tegan:

yeah, I'll, I will, um, but I remember one day I missed a phone call, this is before I had the phone number for the space station in my phone, I missed a call while I was on a different conference call. And my phone was literally sitting, cause we were all talking at my phone. And you know, like huddled around this phone. I think it was an international call to, for some project we were doing. And this number popped up and I was like, I think I need to answer that, and so I missed it, and and so I called back, and it was the Johnson Space, or the Kennedy Space, it was the space, I can't even remember which space center it was, it was like a weird, it was like not the main one, and I was like, Okay, so if the space station called me from this number, is, this is like, I was talking to the operator.

Rick:

Right

Tegan:

like, if the space station called me from this number, would this be the number that would pop up? And the operator was like, No. And then I hung up on me. I'm like, no, I think this, that actually is what happened. But anyway, so that's a, um, it's a fun fact. It was, I did actually, it routes through the space center and operator number and comes to your phone. But, um, so I couldn't call him, but it was great. It was, I got to talk to them. I had to be trained and how to talk to an astronaut while they're in space. Can't say some certain things.

Kaleem:

What couldn't you say? What couldn't you say?

Tegan:

Well, they're concerned about the mental health of astronauts while they're up, which makes sense. and, um, well, You can't talk about, like, political stuff. You wouldn't, you, they wouldn't want you to say if you knew some information about, like, a family member of theirs, like, basically, they don't want you to say anything distressing because

Kaleem:

Right.

Tegan:

it makes sense, you know, they're, like,

Kaleem:

Right. So there's, they weren't like, don't say pizza because they're, they really want

Tegan:

No.

Kaleem:

Okay. That's definitely a remote experience. While we've definitely a I've never met anyone that had the space station's number in their phone. So that's the checkmark.

Rick:

could you text that to me

Kaleem:

Can

Tegan:

it's not gonna actually get you very far.

Rick:

Well I definitely don't know her

Kaleem:

Can you text? Yeah, if you got anything, that'd be awesome. If we could do if she texts us the number and we just started prank calling the space station every day like hello. Yeah, it's impressive.

Rick:

Since we're talking about mental health it's a perfect segue into what you're doing with your company and I just I have so many questions but Really what I want to know is the phrase as you describe it is um the burnout epidemic is what we're dealing with And people are being forced you know to make drastic career changes because of it So you know that being said you know how did you migrate from architecture to holistic wellness and how did it how did you land where you are now

Tegan:

That's a good question. So I was working for the architect, Zaha Hadid. She was my professor at Yale and then hired me afterwards. She's the, for people who don't know who Aha ad is, she. She's, she was, she passed away, but she was the, probably one of the most famous architects of of our era, of our age but she's very, she does very parametric designs, so it's all like, um, like super space, space age looking, and it's really, really cool, Loved working there but in, in college, grad school, and then also, um, the early days of my architecture career, I was working extremely long hours. It's kind of, architects are famous for working insane hours and having to pull all nighters all the time. And I think probably my body was just like, don't do that anymore. But I ended up getting a chronic inflammatory condition. That kept on landing me in the hospital over and over again and actually doctors were telling me that I might need to live on steroids for the rest of my life for it. And I just really didn't, I mean it was basically because of stress but it was also because my body is also prone to, um, I have like a, an inflammatory condition anyway, and so it was like the combination of the two things together but I mean it, but it was really, really hardcore. I would end up in the hospital like with internal bleeding for like two weeks at a time. Like it was like serious. And so yeah, so they were like, you could live on steroids and I really just, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to kind of give into this, like, having to rely on a drug like that. Of course, if it helps people, that's great, and if I ended up needing to do it, I would have done it. But they also told me in the hospital that I could try a more holistic approach. But then what happened was that they told me also that they had zero tools for me to try to figure it out. They were like, you're gonna have to go and figure it out on your own, basically. And so,

Kaleem:

They're like, you could do the drugs for the rest of your life and you could, you know, do steroids or whatever for the rest of your life. Or you could try something holistic. We've heard that works. But,

Rick:

Yeah

Tegan:

But we can't help you. Yeah.

Rick:

it's easier to write you a prescription and I'll get kickbacks from the pharmaceutical company if I

Tegan:

Yeah, exactly. So I ended up needing to kind of just figure it out on my own. And, this was more than 10 years ago. And I think, you know, in the past 10 years, the, you know, wellness wellbeing industry has just completely exploded and there are a lot more tools and a lot, there's a lot more information and there's like a wellbeing column in the New York times. But back then it was barely even discussed. It was kind of a, Like, you'd have to find a practitioner or somebody to help you, like a, like a nutritionist or something or a health coach on your co op, uh, bulletin board, you know, that's like, it didn't really exist as a thing. So, I ended up becoming a yoga instructor through this journey of like, just figuring it out on my own because I got really into yoga and meditation and mindfulness and that sort of thing. And,

Kaleem:

Were you noticing an improvement though? Like as you got involved in that? Were you like, huh, I went to yoga, feeling I'm feeling okay. Like like

Tegan:

the biggest, the thing that helped me and my particular condition the most was, I went on a really extreme anti inflammatory diet for six months and it just kind of like fully reset things. And like, I don't live on that diet all the time, but it was really, really helpful. It almost felt like, cause I've also taken the steroids, it almost felt the same as taking the steroids, like in terms of like how my body felt is it was so good. It's super resetting and calming and I've had some little flare ups here and there in the last, um, you know, 10 years, but it's been way more under control than before and I ended up not needing to be on the steroids. So for me that was really, really helpful and continues to be really helpful and, but I think that journey basically led me to discovering the holistic, yeah, the holistic side of things. And there's so many aspects of it that. are so helpful for so many people. So the yoga thing ended up just being kind of a byproduct of that. And then also the mindfulness side of things. And I ended up teaching mindfulness and around, around the world of yoga and mindfulness and Croatia and England and all sorts of places at festivals and different things. And, um, I mean, I think in terms of remote work, I'm just like, I'm just now realizing like how much remote work I've done in my life, even before the pandemic because of all these projects that were so international. So

We'll be right back after these words. 2020 was no joke. It changed the game for everyone. Workplace flexibility is no longer a perk, but an expectation. In fact, a recent study showed that a flexible schedule is more important than salary. Yeah, you heard that right? Employees want choices over cash. If you're a startup or a small business that doesn't have a remote work strategy, stop what you're doing right now and complete our free tree assessment at blendmeinc. com. Since 2013, BlendMe Inc. Has been helping small businesses improve the remote employee experience. Let's stay local, but compete global. Visit us at blendmeinc. com. That's blendmeinc. com. Ever wonder how certain ads catch your attention or get stuck in your head? It's because the person voicing it knows how to tell the story. Maybe they're telling you to stumble over to Sullivan St. Patrick's day for green beers, Irish car bombs, and con beef all freaking day. Don't miss the deal of a lifetime this President's Day at Callahan Ford. Savings like these should be unconstitutional. Or maybe Come wash away your troubles here at Cooters Car Wash. We ain't no soap opry, but you'll be singing high praises. Hoo wee, Cooters! Or, here at Brooks Brothers Mortuary, we put the fun in funeral. Everyone is just dying to join us. Alright, well that's a bit much, but for you, I'll do it. I'm Rick Haney, and if you're a business owner looking for a creative voice in your marketing, look no further. I'll tell your story the way you want it told. Follow along at RemotelyWeAreOne or visit my website at rickhaney. me for more information. And now, back to the show.

Tegan:

So another side side project of mine back in the day was we helping to work on a festival in Sweden. And that was all remote work, but that was in, you know, that in 2010. So I was like way before normally people would have been doing a lot of remote work. But anyway, so, I ended up starting a rooftop yoga class with a friend of mine just for fun. We started running classes at a big hotel in New York on, like overlooking the city from this rooftop. And it really caught on really fast. We had yoga on helicopter pads and like famous people were showing up at the classes and we started growing this community kind of accidentally, like Ariana Huffington was at our class. And Misty Copeland and, like, all these really cool people and,

Kaleem:

Yeah.

Tegan:

was about, I guess, 10 years ago. And, again, kind of before yoga was everywhere, which is hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine a time when all of this wasn't around. But that kind of started to introduce me to the idea that, you know, this, a lot of people that were coming to our sessions were, had really similar, you know, Kind of healing journeys or, you know, health issues that they wanted to address more holistically that they didn't know where to turn. And so the kind of next step for that little company was to do the first wellness activations for companies like Samsung and Polaroid and Lululemon.

Kaleem:

Right off the bat, like, so, so you're doing this on the rooftop, doing yoga on the rooftop of these buildings in New York, you're like, wow, this is getting kind of big. And you're like, the next step is why don't we Show this to businesses like I was just trying to understand where you got the connection to like pitch it to business. I mean, I

Tegan:

I can't even remember what happened. Maybe somebody came to one of our rooftops. I mean, this was a long time

Rick:

Yeah sounds like it might have happened organically

Kaleem:

Yeah.

Tegan:

happened pretty organically, and then We ended up doing the Wellness Lounges for Fashion Week with IMGWME, and that was because of, a co founder that we brought in named Jordan, who's, um, It's amazing. And she is just, you know, incredibly connected within the fashion world. And so that, that's where that came from, but yeah, there was just, what happened though is that, you know, for the fashion week lounges, for example, we'd have people come in to our lounge and there would be, there was a kind of a pop up situation. So we had like a little, like. store that we had popped up with, honestly, a ton of brands that are now huge brands in well being, but were just like baby brands then. It's like Sun Potion, Four Sigmatic, like all these like, little itty bitty brands that are now huge. And then we also had practitioners that would be giving little mini sessions and what we kept on hearing over and over again was, I'm doing cancer treatment and I would love to have an acupuncturist to be, you know, complimenting my cancer treatment, but I don't know where to find one. Or, I've got some fertility issues and I would love to try talking to a health coach and I don't know where to find one. And so it kept on being this thing, you know, like, I can't find one. I ended up starting, my company, Wellset with my co founder, Sky Meltzer. He was the CEO of Manduka, the yoga mat company, for about 10 years. And he had just had his second private equity exit with Manduka, and had been looking into a, Concept for a marketplace and he knew that I was kind of working in that space trying to, you know, build a marketplace. So we were connected and we launched market well set as a marketplace in early days and

Kaleem:

What year is this? roughly?

Tegan:

in 2018

Kaleem:

Okay. Okay. So

Tegan:

I guess we fundraise in 2019.

Kaleem:

So now you've done all this, this work up, you started the company and this is pre pandemic. And I'm assuming things are going okay. I'm assuming things are signing up. All right. I'm just going to take a guess. Did you start the company remotely? Cause I'm assuming is your co founder in the same place that you were or

Tegan:

We did originally start remotely and then when we got funding, I moved to la I was in San Francisco and he was in Los Angeles. And so I ended up moving and moving to la but we ended up getting an office for a little while, for just in 2019. But then of course the pandemic.

Kaleem:

right.

Tegan:

And, and, and actually the pandemic really changed how our business was built and in those early days we created the largest marketplace of holistic providers, I think, in the world. And most of them, about like 95 percent of them at that point pre pre pandemic were all in person sessions. And so that really, really, really drastically changed with the pandemic. And we were actually supposed to launch the platform in March of 2020, which we obviously we had to, we had to change our launch date.

Kaleem:

whether funders okay with that? You had to you had no

Tegan:

Yeah, you have to, it's a, the pandemic was pretty, everybody understood.

Kaleem:

yeah, I mean it must have just been mind blowing just hearing you talk about like we're building this up and then all of a sudden You know where we're getting ready to launch everyone's excited and Then that happened and you're like, oh no, I just Wow

Tegan:

Yeah, I know it was wild. And I think I'm definitely a person who, I think I see the writing on the wall. I don't, um, like double down on something that's not working. Which is, I think served our company really well. So we've been able to like pivot in little ways and like find our direction instead of you know, I think some people are like, no, this is what we're doing. And then they, it's, you know, you can really drive something into the ground by, by not being flexible, but we've been really flexible with it with listening to the market and just kind of figuring it out. One of the things that happened was that, in the early days of the pandemic, we realized, you know, we have 20, 000 wellbeing practitioners that we have vetted and background checked and we, it's kind of almost made us the biggest talent agency for these types of wellbeing practitioners. And with my events background and our company's events background, We realized that we could offer something really great for people when they were stuck at home, especially in those early days when everybody was really nervous. Nobody knew what was going on. It's hard to even remember at this point how scared everyone was. I know it's, but it was really a scary time and people had COVID and were stuck at home for a really long time with not seeing anyone and not knowing whether they were going to die. Literally, it was really scary. And so, We ended up starting something that we called the Stay at Home Wellness Festival, which was about six weeks of ten hours per day of live Zoom classes. And our practitioners were teaching, we had a whole range of different topics, we'd publish a new schedule every day, and we had 45, 000 people come to that to that festival. And it was all organic, we weren't doing any ads and people just loved it. And so that was kind of the first, thing that we saw that was like, you know what, actually, maybe the in person one on one thing is not actually the direction for the company. Maybe actually we can reduce the price point of everything by making a group classes and delivering it with like a really, really inexpensive membership. And and so what we have now is a platform, a digital digital studio that gives people access to Uh, you have 24 hours a day, to these classes that are in a group format. So there are up to six live classes per day, every day, with practitioners ranging from hypnotherapists through to EFT tapping, um, we have acupressure, we have myofascial release with posture classes, nonviolent communication classes with therapists. So it really, really ranges the whole gamut of all of the different types of of, holistic care, kind of mind, body, spirit, holistic care. And we've packaged it up for a really, really cheap price point for teams because we actually, the pandemic really, you know, making everything more remote has created a lot of, need for, you know, even more of this, like kind of wellbeing stuff being delivered to people in their homes. Yeah.

Rick:

I would say so

Kaleem:

it's almost like, for a lot of people, the pandemic, including Rick and I, it was a really scary time, but like the forced ability to kind of work remotely spurred a lot of innovation during that time. And it made us kind of rethink how we live and what priorities some people had. So it's just cool to hear from you. Like you had this great idea to start off with and then the pandemic happens. And because of how people were feeling. You all were like, Hey, how can we help? And it's almost like your willingness to help. You could tell you you come from a place of wanting to help just hearing your story, right? Like started charity in college. You started coding when you're 12 years old to help other kids learn how to code, like, so you have this passion of giving and it's just really great to hear that giving kind of helped you all kind of blossom too. I'm sure that wasn't the plan going in and now look at you today. So I kudos to the world. I'm doing

Rick:

Yeah

Kaleem:

putting some more good back out there, you know,

Rick:

yeah no it's wonderful And yeah and what I was just gonna interject with is that we still have so much work to do. I feel like People had pandemic fatigue. You know long before we declared that this pandemic was over they just wanted to get back to normal. And You know moving beyond that you know over the past year been seeing kind of a disconnect between Managers executives whatever and what employees want you know you know Working remotely do you think that the kind of the friction between them is really a driving force behind people wanting just to feel better? Like is it causing them a lot of friction in their own lives to know that I just want more flexibility I gotta start living better but I also have to work Like can you talk a little bit at all about that relationship? Yeah

Tegan:

I mean, I think that at the end of the day, I think a lot of people talk about in the benefits space, like how they can really move the needle on things, like how HR teams and managers can move the needle on things like retention and, presenteeism or absenteeism. And, a lot of times if you ask the employees what they want, really all they want is, To work less and be paid more. It's really comes down to that,

Rick:

Yes

Kaleem:

Yes. Yes.

Tegan:

problem is like it's almost like you have to talk to us. I'm including me. I'm an employee of my company too. And like, I'm like, yeah, it'd be great to be paid more and work less. I would love that. But it's almost like you have to talk to us all like little kids. Cause like, you know, little kids also like, they want the marshmallow, right? It's like you just want the marshmallow, or you want the cookie, but you know that if you just eat cookies all day long, you're gonna get sick, and like, you gotta also eat some vegetables. And so, I think that can't always be the answer, to just be paid more and work less. There have to be other things that we, as the employees, have to be like, you know what, actually, Yes, I need to, like, take care of my well being and so that will make me feel better as well. I need to take care of myself and be given the tools to take care of myself. And that includes a bunch of different things, not just the stuff that we're working on providing. You know, it also includes, a lot of things that are not really being addressed right now in, in our country very well. It includes child care and elderly care. It includes, you know, just, it's like, you know, all of the things that go into. helping somebody to feel better in their workday, that, that are not necessarily about like what you're doing when you're sitting down or the number of hours that you're working. And so, I think that there is a little bit of a shift in mindset right now, among managers and HR teams to see, you know, how they can support people in their wider lives. And I think, I think like mental health and well being and health care all happens outside of the office for the most part, like, you know, some things might happen in the office, but for the most part, it's outside of the office. So it's all about equipping employees to act or empowering employees and empowering teams to actually make better choices in their off time, actually, you know, it's like, how do you spend your evenings? How do you spend your mornings? What are you choosing to put in your body? What are you choosing to do with your body outside of the office? I don't know if that answers your question,

Rick:

Yeah No you know it's all relative I I think that one thing I've realized is that as tragic as the pandemic was I mean we lost a lot of people and it's incredibly sad and tragic but in my mind something had to happen I would rather have it not been as tragic as the pandemic was but you know I feel like coming out of it now we're all starting to realize How unhealthy we were not all of us of course but you know something needed to change and we were forced to change how we were living And now it's like these thoughts are just unfortunately they're starting to catch up to us to a lot of people and they're just realizing now wow did I have it all wrong before You know look at all the things I used to take for granted

Kaleem:

right. Like holistic wellbeing is a prime example of a space that really grew significantly, in my opinion, in the last five years because of people started reprioritizing, you know, I want to move closer to my family. I don't mind seeing the cat go across the desk anymore or an interruption from a child because like we started putting humans first because there was something so tragic that was going on. We started saying, well, dang, we're just human. So kind of take care of ourselves first. So,

Rick:

And obviously we're not here for very long

Kaleem:

Right. And the fact that you made a really cool point about like all of these things are new. And how organizations are like an HR department. A lot of people, ops people and Tegan, I can't believe didn't hit up that area of transform. I'm All the people at transform. A lot of times you hear people, ops, people talking, and it's like, HR got all this responsibility. You know, now we got to be concerned about some of the things outside of the office so that they're productive inside of the office. and I like the way you put it about like providing resources for people to, to decide how they would like to spend their time outside of work. That's really cool. That's really cool.

Tegan:

Well, and I think, like, the remote working side of things also is, I think we're never going to go back to people, everybody just, you know, expecting that working in the office full time is normal. This is just my opinion, but I think there will always be at least a hybrid element to a lot of jobs to jobs that that is possible, just because I think that there was such a shift in mental health and, you know, being able to take care of your elders and your kids, because they're at your house, probably and actually, that happened to my family during the pandemic. We were taking care of my my grandparents and, it was a great thing that, that I was able to be at home and not in an office every day because of that. I think everybody now has seen that there could be a different way. You know, over, over the millennia, we've moved away from being really like, um, Well, actually, I should say Western world, because I think, you know, there's still some communities around the world that still do things in a different way. But Western, the Western world has moved away from supporting each other in a community kind of way. And it's become all about the individuals in the nuclear family, but that has become really problematic. It's put a ton of pressure on people who are working out of the pre pandemic out in the world and then having to come back and figure out a way to get their kids have to be someplace else. Somebody else has to help them pick up their kids from someplace because they're across town working in an office. And you know, now we've kind of seen like, Oh, wait a second, actually. If I can work from home or at least in a hybrid way, I can be there for my kids at pickup and I can still be there for all the meetings I need to be at. I can take my aging parent to the doctor and shift my meetings around. So it's possible. And I just, I think that I I'm talking a lot about care because I think that was one of the biggest things that shifted because of the pandemic.

Rick:

A huge driver

Tegan:

yeah, huge, huge driver, and on the mental health care side of things, I think that remote working really was hard for a lot of people, mentally, there's a lot of loneliness, there's a lot of feeling like the day is blending into the night, and you just like there's a lot of Boundary setting. And so I think a lot of people have had to figure out how they've had to teach themselves how to put boundaries in. And, I think there's a lot of work to do on the loneliness side of things still because I think a lot of people still do feel that way. And so, you know, I think that's something we try to do. It's hard for us. It's a digital platform to really do that. But we just started this human humans network for HR people, for people ops, uh, team members. So ranging from more junior members to CHROs. And we're bringing, you know, HR teams together in community because we've heard from them over and over and over again that their jobs are super lonely. They feel pressure from above and below and and they're the ones that are setting the tone for their whole team. So we, you know, as people leaders that it's their job to set the culture. And so we really believe in Like a trickle down system of like, if we can get the mental health and the loneliness problem solved at the HR level then hopefully that can translate down into better mental health and better well being for their teams as well.

Kaleem:

really, really, interesting

Tegan:

yeah.

Kaleem:

for sure. I like

Rick:

Yeah Yeah definitely. So Teagan can you tell us about a comical or inspiring moment you have had while working remotely

Kaleem:

yes,

Tegan:

Sure, so I, I think, I don't know, it's, I think one of my favorite pandemic moments was, um, I was working at home at my grandparents house, actually. And they have since passed away, which is very sad, but I was so grateful because of being able to work remotely to get to spend a ton of time with them in those years. I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I would have been, I would have been in an office and instead I got to work from their house with them for weeks at a time, sometimes months at a time. And, My favorite thing that happened was I was on a really important investor meeting. I had a bunch of people on the other line, like a board of people, like listening to me talk and my, my. It was serious, and to my grandparents, I'm still their grandkid, who is like a baby to them, you know, I'm

Kaleem:

course.

Tegan:

of a tech company, I'm, I'm like,

Kaleem:

Oh little TT. Little

Tegan:

I'm a little, yeah, exactly, Teags, Teags, and so I'm sitting in the kitchen, and, my grandpa who would normally stay kind of like in the back of the house. I didn't really expect for him to come through, so I didn't warn him, but he like comes in with his walker and pauses like right behind me in the view and he's the cutest. And I love him so much, but he's like hard of hearing and also blind. And so he doesn't know what's going on. And he's just like yelling at me. I'm just like.

Rick:

Ah

Kaleem:

What's he yelling at you for? What's he yelling at you for?

Tegan:

no, I don't even know what he was saying, but he's like, he was saying something about the puppies. I think that's what it was. He comes in, he had these two little dogs and he'd be like, he, he walked in and he was like, puppies, puppies, And then he started yelling and then he starts, and I'm like, I don't know, cause I, he can't even hear me. And so I'm like, Grandpa. Speaking of muting yourself, Rick,

Rick:

Yeah yeah

Tegan:

myself.

Kaleem:

Oh my gosh. So what happened? So like everyone on the

Tegan:

it was fine. It was, no, but I mean, it was endearing. It's fine. It wasn't a problem, but can you imagine that happening before we were all working remotely that your grandpa would be watching the view behind you while you're in a really important pitch yelling about puppies? Yeah.

Kaleem:

Out of curiosity. Did you land the pitch? He's like puppies.

Tegan:

I can't even remember. Probably not.

Kaleem:

Well, you know what? They're lost. You shouldn't have. Hey, wait, just to be sure, just in case you did get the funding from the company, just in case. Great job. If you didn't, you're lost. Good

Tegan:

barking. So I'm going to get the full working remotely experience. I can't remember what pitch it was, but I only say probably not because I pitch, you know, you just don't, the probability is, you know, it's like 10 percent hit rate. So it's like probably one of the 90%. So one

Kaleem:

There it is. There it is. I mean, grandpa probably saved you from some ridiculous terms. You know what I mean? So thanks Gramps. He's looking out for you every time. He Still is. Thanks.

Rick:

That's such a great story Tegan thank you so much especially for your insights but sharing your experiences with us and um

Kaleem:

Putting up with us.

Rick:

tolerating our juvenile behavior as I say you were a super sport and we were we're so glad to have you here Where can our listeners and viewers find you

Tegan:

So Wellset is at wellset. co. So W E L L S E T dot C C O. If they want to join Human Humans, if they're on a, people, um, So if you're on the Google Ops team or if they're a people leader that's free. Completely free to join. That's at wellset. co front slash human humans. If you contact us through any form on the website, I will see it probably. We're still that small of a team so yeah, feel free to reach out.

Rick:

Well the work you're doing is amazing You are a ray of sunshine in a sometimes dark world and we appreciate you

Kaleem:

Thank you

Tegan:

thank you for having me.

Kaleem:

We'll talk to you later. Peace.

People on this episode

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Kaleem Clarkson

Co-host
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Rick Haney

Co-host